Belize Electricity Ltd. (BEL) is the main supplier of electricity. Domestic electricity is supplied at 110/220 volts two or three wire single phase service, and 220 or 440 volts four wire 3-phase service, all at 60 HZ.

I knew about the U.S.-style 120/240 3-wire domestic services, but the 3-phase commercial system sounds fascinating.

If it's really 220 and 440V, then maybe it's an adaptation of the American 4-wire delta, with voltages raised?

Bearing in mind though that these reference sources are often a little less than accurate, I'm wondering if somebody has mixed up the voltage levels and it's really a straight 4-wire wye system at 230/400 or thereabouts. The 440 designation was the standard specified level for the highest nominal voltage system in the U.K. before standardization: 250/440V.

Anyway, why was I asking?

Well, I actually stumbled upon some information on Belize while browsing for real estate, and the place looks quite intriguing.

I'm wondering if somebody has mixed up the voltage levels and it's really a straight 4-wire wye system at 230/400 or thereabouts. The 440 designation was the standard specified level for the highest nominal voltage system in the U.K. before standardization: 250/440V.

Electricity is provided by BEL -- Belize Electric, Limited. BEL was recently privatized, and now they are pushing a dam -- the Chililo Project -- which will provide more electricity and "free Belize from outside power sources." In fact, BEL is mostly owned by Canadian interests, and the dam will be built by a Canadian firm, and it will not come close to freeing Belize from outside power sources. Most of the electricity here comes from a big power plant up close to Merida in Mexico. They shut down the power about once a week for ??maintenance?? usually on Sunday Morning, for a couple of hours. (Sometimes Saturday)

With power imported from May-Hee-Co, I guess it made sense to adopt a 60Hz system.

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Power here is 110 Volt, 60 Hertz, and some towns even have three phase. It is very expensive (over 15 cents for a kilowatt/hour which cost 6 cents in Colorado) and not very reliable. We have an outage every couple of days. Sometimes it comes right back on, but sometimes itâ€™s off for an hour or two. The power comes from Mexico, which does not reassure me, since I know that Y2K projects in Mexico are all 9-24 months behind. We do have our own generating plant here in Corozal, but they shut it down because fuel oil was so expensive. Of course, those oil prices are down now but getting them to reconsider will be difficult. Even so, the average household electric bill is pretty low. We just got our bill, very high by Belizean standards, and it was 49 dollah.